Love Don't Die
by jcforever19
Summary: "You can break it up, you can burn it down, box it in, bury it in the ground- but love don't die." A series of one shots to be updated on whim about the inescapable roller coaster relationship of Jimmy Neutron and Cindy Vortex.


**Hey y'all! I haven't written for this fandom in two years but I read a few fics and the love for JN came rushing back! Therefore, I wrote this despite how rusty I am. I still don't own JN, sadly. **

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Mud tracks stained the linoleum floor. A faint aroma of lavender and rain lingered as it poured outside. Cindy Vortex gazed at her reflection in the window, barely surprised by what she saw. Her hair was a bit disheveled, wisps of her pin straight blonde hair struggled to come undone from her ponytail. Her lips were pursed and her cheek laid propped on her fist. She could hardly say she was pleased with herself. She was stuck in detention for the better part of her afternoon and her mother was going to kill her for it.

She ran through her schedule in her head. It was ingrained in her memory. She had a piano lesson at three thirty and a karate class to teach at four forty five and a session with her tutor at seven. Any time in between would be spent practicing for college interviews from notecards that littered her schoolbag, her purses, the pockets of all her jeans. Her life was consumed by tons of activities and sometimes she loved it; loved the hectic nature of it all, and other times, she seriously pondered how much of a point there was in being driven like a donkey from extra curricular to extra curricular every single day. Today was one of the days when everything she did seemed fruitless. Of course the bad mood had only been set off by her arguments with a certain arrogant know it all-

The sound of footsteps jostled Cindy out of her thoughts. She rolled her eyes. "Neutron, what the hell are you doing here?" She knew exactly what he was doing here but it still slipped out by force of habit. She looked at him with contempt, wearing an eternal scowl. While he'd lost his signature hairstyle, he'd certainly made up for it with his ever distinctive abundance of pride and conceit. He was taller than her now, and was actually sort of decent looking. Not like that excused anything-he was still the most stuck up jerk she'd ever had the so called 'pleasure' of knowing.

"This is the detention room, Vortex, ergo, I am in detention. Simple associations escaping you now?"

"I don't need this." She murmured under her breath, still loud enough for him to catch.

"You know, neither of us would be here if you'd just shut your big mouth." He sighed with obvious boredom. His piercing blue eyes caught the light and Cindy felt the back of her neck growing hot for no reason whatsoever.

"My big mouth? I was trying to save our project from tanking by letting you know that your stupid source was wrong-"

"My source was perfectly fine, Vortex. I'll have you know my source was an essay by a highly accredited professor at Pomona Institute-"

"Yeah an essay written at least five years ago by a senile old crackpot-"

"This is what I mean. If you just trusted that I was right- for once-"

"See, that's the funny thing. You're only right about five percent of the time."

Neutron sighed and stared at the swirling pattern of the wood that formed the surface of the desk in front of him.

"What do you have against me, Vortex?" He held his head in his hands.

"You can't be serious." She grumbled.

"I am serious. I could be in my lab right now, working on my mini particle engine."

She rolled her eyes. "I bet it blows up before dawn."

He gave a dry, sarcastic laugh. "Very funny. None of my inventions have blown up in over seven months. And that invention would have-"

"Oh right, the invention that exploded, cut off a good three inches off my hair, and turned Ms. Blake into a rhesus monkey."

"It was seven months ago and I said sorry." He gritted his teeth, knowing full well that he'd been entirely to blame for that little mishap. "Sorry doesn't grow back my hair before prom, Nerdtron!"

"Ahh, back to the juvenile insults then, Cindy?" He chuckled almost coldly. "Y'know that would only matter if you actually had someone to take." Cindy's sour expression gave away the true sting of his words.

"I am _so_ done with you, Freak Brain." She turned her gaze back to the window, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. That had been a bit harsh, even for him, he supposed. And he didn't mean it anyways- after all, all their insults were precipitated by the gentle knowledge that deep down they were sustained by their catty rivalry. Or at least he thought about it that way…

"Look, I'm sorry about the hair. And the source." There, he'd said it. He'd apologized as usual. She huffed and stared straight into the space ahead of her with no intention of forgiving him.

"I sort of think medium length hair is more…err practical." He added, thinking it might alleviate her obvious disappointment. She looked unamused.

"Says the idiot who almost burned up the chemistry lab because he caught his fudge hairdo on fire."

He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't said it yet. He hadn't uttered the insult that would one day cross the line and lead them to entirely separate existences. That day hadn't come yet, but he lived in the dread that it would. As did she, although he could not possibly know it.

The two sat in peaceful silence for a few seconds. Cindy absent mindedly tugged her hair around her finger. If he didn't know her, he'd probably think she was an angel. From afar, it wasn't too hard to admire her. She was determined and pretty…and although he hated to admit it…pretty damn intelligent. She was the only one who could hold a candle to his skills in this whole high school, possibly even this whole town.

He examined her carefully. Concern tugged at the edge of her face, and tight lines decorated her forehead. He worried once again that he had said something irreversible. He took an internal deep breath before he broke the silence.

"I was just kidding, Vortex. You'll probably be asked." She turned to look at him in slight surprise. "To prom." She scoffed.

"We'll see about that." She seemed satisfied for the time being, although a hint of her inner torment shone through in the way her words quivered. He thought for a second maybe there was someone she was hoping to be asked by, but brushed the thought away. Cindy Vortex wasn't the type to really care about this stuff, right? Things seemed to work out for her in the end. She'd be asked by some guy with sandy hair wearing overwhelming amounts of cologne. One of the many seniors in their grade.

And that thought made Jimmy's insides churn more than he would think reasonable. The more he pictured her going with George from AP Bio or Harry from AP Calculus or one of those other guys with a mere course load of three AP's, his heart sunk. He realized he didn't want her to go with some run of the mill loser with a 3.7 GPA and no knowledge of the nuances of Einstein's theories of special and general relativity. He shuddered at the thought. He made up his mind to ask her and smiled with this secret knowledge. It was just to save her from the company of those halfwits anyways. It wasn't like he actually liked her or anything.

He turned to her and said, "I'm pretty sure you'll be asked Vortex. Don't worry about it." She looked at him quizzically, wondering why he was suddenly reassuring her so much. As the detention bell rung, he got up with a swiftness that was a bit uncharacteristic of him, and fled the room, giving Cindy a manic grin on the way out. She rolled her eyes although she felt her cheeks growing red hot at his smile.

_What a dork. _


End file.
